Othering "Lebs" : racialised demonisation of Lebanese immigrants in Australia

This paper demonstrates how the Lebanese immigrant population in Australia (and especially its largest city, Sydney) has quite a distinct experience from elsewhere in the Lebanese diaspora in the way they have been perceived and represented. Over the past two decades, Lebanese immigrants in Sydney have been ideologically associated with inherent criminality: they have been racialised and criminalised at the same time. A whole younger generation, of second- and third-generation Lebanese immigrants, has grown up having to live with, and to respond to, being defined in that way. This chapter traces that process of racialization and criminalisation by focusing on some key flashpoints over this period, and also gives some indication of how Lebanese Australians in Sydney have experienced this 'othering'.